The Ripple Effect
by V.Evergreen
Summary: It's not like Pepper to lie, but then again it's not like Tony to hover indecisively between life and death. Well, maybe it's just not like Pepper to lie. Set after Avengers.
1. Chapter 1

She couldn't even remember making her way to the hospital. She could hear the phone conversation with Agent Hill rattling around her head as though it were stuck on repeat but nowhere in her mind could she remember actually travelling. All that came to mind was the panic.

_"-flying over Afganistan when it happened-" _

Of course he was. He always seemed to be there when disaster struck. She only prayed that this time was nowhere as bad as the first time.

_"-don't know what he was hit by. Must have been armour piercing,-"_

She was going to burn that suit. No. She was going to take it apart peice by peice, and if she couldn't do that then she'd bribe Bruce or Thor into doing it for her. Either way there was no way she was ever going to let Tony in that death trap again.

_"-got him back into the country-"_

Oh god, what was she going to do?

_"-coded twice-" _

He couldn't die. The thought was preposterous. He was larger than life, not devoid of it.

_"-critical condition-"_

She forced herself to think straight as she jogged down one of the seemingly never ending monotonous hospital corridors, heels in hands. She'd been a board meeting when she'd got the phone call. She'd left and hadn't gone back in, not even to say she was leaving. Her head swivelled from side to side desperately looking for a sign or nurse who could tell her where to go.

"Pepper?"

She skidded to a halt, "Steve?" She asked eyes wide. He was down one of the halls she'd just passed and when she looked past him she could see the rest of the Avengers, all in varying states of health. She walked down to them, eyes searching each face, hoping not to see the tell tale signs that someone was going to have to tell her the unthinkable.

"He's still alive." Steve blurted.

For a second it felt as though a weight had been lifted from her heart but just as quickly it clamped back down again, "What do you mean still?" She asked her voice climbing in pitch, her breath coming too fast.

Natasha hobbled over on what looked like a broken, but already cast leg, "They won't tell us anything." She said with an uncharacteristic amount of bitterness bleeding through into her unusually accented voice. Pepper doubted that emotion was unfamiliar to the assassin but it was the first time she'd heard any evidence of it.

"Why not?" She asked uncomprehendingly.

Bruce piped up from where he was sitting on what looked like a highly uncomfortable chair with his head resting against the wall, eyes closed, "We're not family or next of kin."

"I'm his next of-" her voice trailed off as she remembered the papers that would have made her his next of kin sitting unsigned and unsent away on his desk. She knew he'd had no qualms about signing them, she even thought he looked a little excited at the prospect of being tied to her at least a little more officially than they were, "Shit." She whispered. No one said anything but from their faces she could tell that they were all thinking the exact same thing.

Clint was passed out propped on the only other chair apart from the one Bruce sat on, with bandages and stitches holding one arm together and staples trying to seal one of the gashes in his forehead. His face had been cleaned but crusted blood still matted his collar.

Bruce hadn't opened his eyes, and from the way he was opening and closing his fist Pepper wasn't sure what colour they'd be if he opened them. The gentle brown of the scientist or the rage fuelled green of The Hulk?

Steve on the whole looked the best out of any of them, physically at least. His healing abilities had made themselves known as bruises faded from black to purple and cuts started scabbing over. Mentally, however he looked like he might be about to crack. His hands twitched compulsively, as though frustrated by his own uselessness, and while she'd never dream of calling him out on it, his eyes were glassier than they would have been normally.

Natasha obviously hadn't fared too well either if her cast and sling were anything to go by. It looked like she had a shadow of a bruise stretched across her cheek bone but under the harsh fluorescent lights, Pepper couldn't say for sure. She turned to look for the last member of the team but found him conspicuously absent.

"What happened to a Thor?" She asked quietly, unsure if she actually wanted to know.

Bruce answered, "Tony wasn't the only one flying when they started their attack." His voice was weary and the lines that graced his face looked deeper and more condemning than Pepper could remember.

"Is he okay?" She asked worriedly.

"Fine." Said Steve, rubbing a tired hand across his face and looking as though he were ready to drop, "He was already healing up by the time we got to him, but we still thought the healers in Asgard would have a easier job of patching him up than anyone could here."

As relieved as she was to hear that Thor would be fine she still blanched that Tony and Thor had been caught in the same attack and the damage had been enough to send Thor back to his own realm. Thor was a god. If it could mess up a god, what had it done to Tony?

She felt her knees go slightly weaker than she was comfortable with. Before she knew it she was leant against the wall, trying to keep upright. "How is he?" She asked, her voice suddenly husky as the very real danger that Tony was in struck home, "What's wrong with him?"

Steve opened his mouth but after a pause it was Natasha who spoke. "He was hit midair, pretty high up. When he fell he shattered his right leg, cracked two ribs and broke three. One of them punctured a lung-" Pepper thought she might be sick. The two thoughts of Tony and injury just didn't merge within her mind. She'd seen him sick and injured before, but never to this level. Natasha continued quietly, "He was hypoxic by the time we got him on the carrier. When he was put on oxygen we thought he'd be stable but-" she swallowed, an incredible show of weakness for such a hardened woman.

"-we didn't find out about the bleeding until much later." Finished Steve, refusing to look her in the eye. "He was talking to us all, obviously in pain, but he was being snarky and sarcastic so we figured it couldn't be as bad as it looked. Then he started seizing."

Pepper's hand flew to cover her mouth as a pained moan almost escaped her. Why did this always happen to him? What if this was one brink of death visit too many? Her heart flatly refused to entertain the notion but her head was already trying to figure out the odds.

Steve waited for her to regain what was left of her control before he started again, "When we got here they said he had some pretty serious internal bleeding, and a fractured skull."

"What happened when you got him here?" Pepper asked weakly. Steve floundered before looking to Bruce. The scientist opened his eyes at last, and through the haze of panic that had hidden her rational thought from her, she was glad to see the familiar comforting brown.

"He was taken into emergency surgery. They wanted to get the bleeding under control. Once," he said stressing the word, leaving Pepper in no doubt that he had deliberately avoided using the word 'if', "they get him out of this surgery, he'll be left to get some of his strength back before they do anything other than stabilise his other injuries."

Pepper nodded, "So what do we do?" She said looking around at each of them. Steve sighed, the action physically deflating him, Bruce's head fell back against the wall with a muted thump as his eyes slid closed once more.

"We wait." Said Natasha already making her way back to Clint.

~o~o~o~

It had been hours. Pepper had sat through every single one of them, wide awake with her mind coming up with worse scenarios with each passing minute. All she knew was that he was still in surgery. They had been told that much but beyond that the nurse refused to tell them anything. She'd all but given up getting any new information for the night when a different nurse walked back into the room.

"Anthony Stark?" She asked looking at all of them in turn, either sleeping or hanging on to the fringes of consciousness. Pepper sat back upright from where she'd been leaning against the wall, feeling her neck crick as she moved too suddenly.

"Us!" She said quickly as the others blinked themselves awake blearily. "That's us!"

"Right," muttered the nurse flicking through the charts in her hand as though to find the right one, "he's out of surgery for now and he's been sedated."

It was like she could finally breathe again. Pepper sucked in a lungful of air as it hit home; he survived the surgery, she wasn't going to hear about him having died on the table. "Is he okay?" She blurted before she could stop herself. She wanted to wince at the stupidity of the question but refused to back down.

The nurse seemed to understand as her eyes softened, "He's not out of the woods, yet." She warned, "He's in a medically induced coma and still in intensive care, critical but stable."

Pepper swallowed convulsively trying to rally what was left of her conviction that Tony would be fine, "Can I see him?" She whispered.

The rest of the team perked up around them, anxious for her answer. The nurse just looked pained, "I'm sorry." She said with real sympathy in her voice, "But I really can't let you in unless you're related or next of kin."

Natasha stepped forward and started asking more questions, most of which Pepper couldn't even begin to decipher but Pepper's mind was elsewhere. It was stuck on Tony. Tony, who wouldn't be waking up for quite some time but who would be completely alone and broken amongst machines and wires. It sounded awfully familiar from what he had told her of Afganistan and she wasn't going to make him revisit that place, even if only in memory. She couldn't let that happen.

Smoothly, and without drawing attention to herself she held her hands behind her back and began working the ring on her right hand off of her index finger. She tried to look as though she knew what she was listening to when Bruce stepped in and began to ask even more technical questions. She slid the ring onto her fourth finger on her left hand, and turned it around so that only a plain band of metal showed. She silently thanked whatever had led her to grab it from her dresser as she ran out of the tower to arrive in time at that board meeting.

She gathered her confidence around her like a coat. That was the only thing that would make this plan work. She cleared her throat and immediately the others fell silent. The nurse turned to look at her again, "Excuse me, but I really would like to go see Tony."

The nurse looked deflated as though she had expected this, "Look, I'm sorry I really am, but you're not family or-" she fell silent as Pepper moved her hand so it was splayed out for them all to see.

"He's my husband." She said shortly, willing her voice not to tremble or her face to twitch and give the whole game away, "So can I see him?"

The nurse looked at her, but this time with the sympathy pushed back of her eyes and suspicion taking the forefront, "If you and Mr Stark had got married wouldn't I have heard about it Miss Potts?"

Pepper fought back panic at the very pertinent line of questioning. They were all over the newspapers and magazines; the press would have a field day if they announced that they were going to get married. She floundered internally as she thought of anything that could get her through those doors and to Tony.

"Would you want something like that splashed over the papers, Miss?" Came a strained but good humoured voice. Steve, too, had joined them and looked down at the nurse with an earnestness that no one else would have quite been able to pull off. Pepper froze in shock as the nurse's wide eyes swivelled back to her but at Steve's meaningful but oddly level look she merely looked as though Captain America backing her up in the middle of a lie was a completely normal thing to happen.

"No, of course not-" the nurse said uncertainly but Natasha cut over her smoothly, just the right amount of inflection tainting her voice to feign sincerity,

"It was a quiet ceremony, we didn't want anyone getting wind of it, of course."

The nurse looked stunned, "No, of course."

She looked at Pepper again but this time there was no suspicion veiled in her eyes just suprise and a little bit of sympathy. Pepper pounced on it, letting her own ire and irritation flood back into her words. She reached into her pocket and dug out her phone before looking back at the other woman, "Of course, if you still don't want to let me in," she said crisply, "I can always phone the company lawyers?"

The young woman's eyes were wide as Pepper's finger hovered over the screen threateningly, "No!" She said quickly, "I'll take you through...if you'll follow me...Mrs Stark?"

Even though the last part came out as a question and she heard Natasha breath out sharply through her nose, in what could have passed as a laugh. Pepper knew the story will come crumbling down around her under the slightest investigation but she couldn't care less if she tried. Not with Tony laying hurt, injured and alone.

They walked through a different tangle of hallways, rather than the ones that Pepper had run down in her desperate search for anyone that knew what was going on. She was pretty much lost after the first three turns but her Nurse navigated them confidently though she kept thowing nervous glances to Pepper. Just when they reach what Pepper assumed could only be the last room she actually threw out an arm and grabbed her before she could finally see Tony.

"I just want you to understand," she said obviously choosing her words carefully, "that it's going to be a shock seeing him like this but no matter how bad it looks, he made it through the surgery."

Pepper inclined her head in understanding though she was already reaching towards the door handle.

Nothing could have prepared her for seeing Tony.

For a wild second her mind screamed at her to get out of the room, to go where she couldn't see him and it wasn't happening. But that wasn't what she did. That would be the last thing she would ever do, not when Tony needed her, especially like this. She gritted her teeth and injected some steel into her resolve. She would be strong enough for both of them.

Slowly, as though any sudden movement would break the stifling stillness of the room she walked over to his bed side. She was irrationally glad that she hadn't put her heels back on since running through the corridors; the clinical click of her heels on polished floors would have broken her when Tony lay dying.

He looked dead already; if it wasn't for the steady tone of his heart moniter she would have believed he'd already passed. He was pale, so pale that his veins stood out as traces of colour, winding beneath the surface of skin that made the white sheets look colourful.

He was laid unmovingly in a organised chaos of machinery and wires, all twining together and delving into his flesh. Sheets hid the rest of him; draped over an elevated leg and tightened over his chest with his shallow breathing. If it wasn't for that tiny minuscule rise and fall he could have been a corpse. A shaky hand rose to her mouth of its own accord.

"It's always a shock the first time." Said the nurse firm the doorway softly. Pepper started; she had completely forgotten she wasn't alone. She wished she could say she had seen him look worse but it would've been a lie. Even meshed together with that infernal suit sitting in the remnants of the battle that had cost him his only father figure and nearly both their lives he had looked better than this. At least then he was moving.

"Would you like to come back or-" The nurse quailed under the glare Pepper sent her.

"I'm not going anywhere." She said resolutely, hating the tremor that shook her voice. Gingerly, she picked her way to the chair that stood by Tony's side. Otherwise known as her place, she thought sadly. She reached out a hand but it just hovered uselessly. It seemed like every inch if him was covered in machines or tubes. She hated them but she would hate to disturb them even more.

The nurse opened her mouth and moved as if to guide her but Pepper had already carefully navigated the various equipment until her hand was just shy of his. She wanted more than anything to take his hand and wait for this to be over but that wasn't going to help anyone.

With the very tips of her fingers she brushed the skin on the back of his hand. He looked more delicate than she could ever have believed. When he didn't shatter under her touch she did it again. Stroked past the tubes in his skin and traced the veins.

He was cold.

She waited until the nurse left the room before the chill of his touch tipped he over the edge.

It wasn't just tears or sobs. She wailed.

She tried to hide it, muffle it or just smooth the ugly sound from existance but she couldn't. No one came in to try and comfort her or stop her from crying for which she was glad. She wouldn't have been able to. Tony Stark, the man who loved her and she loved back, was laid unmovingly in a hospital full of strangers where he might die and there was nothing on this earth that she could do about it.

She cried until his chest ached and her stomach rolled though her hand continued its steady comfort on his cold arm.

Tony laid there pale, indifferent and unmoved as the woman beside him cried herself into a broken semblance of sleep.

(Part 1/2)


	2. Chapter 2

_Week one _

"-so I'm standing there and I can barely see straight after all the shit that's happened, right? I've got my bow in one hand and I'm trying to reach back to grab an arrow but my other hand just kinda keeps twitching," Clint held out his hand as if Tony could see it and carried on, "back at base they said that was normal after whole getting electrocuted escaping thing but at the time it must have looked fucking ridiculous. I couldn't even reach over my own shoulder!"

He paused his story as a nurse walked past the door but continued when she didn't walk in. "So then the target starts getting cocky. Goes from snivelling mess to pretentious underlord in zero to sixty. Actually has the nerve to start monologuing. Anyway, he starts to get up and I _finally_ manage an knock an arrow but I was feeling a little shaky, you know? Four weeks undercover and two being held in a basement as a traitor'll do that to you. So the point is I'm not at my best."

Clint glanced at the clock. Pepper would be there soon. He'd only managed to convince her to go back to the tower on the proviso that he'd stay there in her stead but he wasn't convinced she'd stay long. She'd practically set up camp there and no one was stupid enough to try and make her move. Apart from him apparently.

"Long story short, he makes a run for it and I take the shot, 'cept I missed. I fucking missed!" His voice got a little higher and he could just picture the smirk that would have made him want to throttle Tony if the had been awake. "Got the bastard with the second one but obviously Natasha got there just in time to see me miss the shot and she doesn't let me forget about it for _weeks_. Every time I picked up my bow she just sat there smiling, I almost shot _her_ a couple of times. Didn't in the end but I got her back for it in Budapest."

He smiled at the memory of the good natured ribbing he'd been forced to endure and the rare smile that had lit up his partner's face at his humiliation. "Never told anyone who wasn't there about that, so you can't go around telling everyone, y'hear me?"

For a second the room felt warm with camaraderie. He could have just imagine the eye roll he'd get usually before jokes began that would last so much longer than Natasha's ever did.

Then he properly looked at the bed forgetting why he'd been trying so hard not to. The humour he felt withered and died and the familiar ache in his chest pulsed at the sight of slowly losing another friend.

A wry and brittle smirk bit into his face and twisted his lips and he sighed.

"Who are you gonna tell?"

He didn't speak again until he left.

_Week two _

Not many things could make her uneasy, but it turned out that an unconcious Tony Stark was one of them. She kept expecting him to make some irritating remark or try and provoke some sort of reaction from her. That's what he would have done if he could but at the moment he was decidedly silent. It was discomforting.

Quite frankly, she was clueless. What were you meant to do when someone was unconcious? She knew what she would normally do. Either finish the job or if it was a colleague, get them out of the line of fire. Somehow neither of those options felt applicable.

She mentally searched for anything that might help. Natasha Romanoff was not going to be bested by Tony Stark when he wasn't even conscious to celebrate the victory.

Her mind snagged on a memory. It was actually Tony who was the one who invited on team movie night on the pretence of catching Steve and Thor up on pop culture (privately she thought it was just to see them try and fathom their way through the truly awful films Tony made them suffer through) but they might be able to help.

People were unconcious all the time in movies, what did they do? There seemed to be a good deal of crying to begin with (not something she'd indulge in, especially not over Stark), holding hands (she'd rather jump off the helicarrier) and sharing of feelings (she was quite happy letting everyone continue believing she'd had hers surgically removed), which left...nothing.

She could talk to him, she supposed but what would she say? She made an active effort to avoid talking to him most days. Well, maybe that was unfair. She made an active effort to avoid him when he'd been awake for three consecutive days running only on coffee probably goddamn batteries. Which just happened to be most days.

Her eyes looked around the room, searching for something to do when she saw his medical charts. Book reading was acceptable thing to do when in hospital, wasn't it? And it wasn't like she had a book. Somehow she thought Tony would prefer the chart.

"Alright, what we got?" She muttered, hopping up from her chair. She frowned as she looked at the chart. She was no doctor but she had enough experience of waking up in the care of one after a rough mission. She wandered back to the bed and perched on the side, careful to avoid Tony's limp hand, still intertwined with wires.

She snorted, "Pentobarbital? Warfarin? They got you on the good drugs, Stark." She read on out loud, the specifics lost in her but the general gist within her grasp.

She turned the page and began to scan read until one phrase practically jumped out and throttled her.

_ "-unclear if patient will regain consciousness after surgery. Possibility of brain damage due to lack of oxygen uptake and severe head injuries. Patient shows little to no signs of responding to treatment."_

She stopped reading after that. She knew he was in trouble the moment she noticed his lips were tinged blue from the hypoxia. She knew it was serious the moment he started seizing and there a nothing any of them could do about it. But she didn't know he was going to die.

The doctors wouldn't say it outright but she'd seen enough death to realise when it was coming. To look at him he didn't look like he was dying. Sure he was pale and stiller than he had any right to be, but _dying_? It looked as though at any moment he was going to open his eyes and make some snarky comment that would make everyone want to hit him or smother him with a pillow. He wasn't meant to be the one to _die_.

She sniffed hard when she heard her breathing becoming shallower, fighting to hold together her tattered composure. She went to brush back her hair and pick up the chart but realised something odd.

Her hand had, all by itself, found and laced itself with Tony's cold one on the bed. The touch was light and careful not to disturb any wires or tubes, but it was still there.

It was the sort of thing he would have loved calling her out on.

She looked back at their hands and cocked her head.

Sneaky bastard.

_Week three _

Steve was at a loss. He could barely talk to Tony without offending him when the man was capable of responding, but somehow it was harder still knowing that his words would fall on deaf ears. He looked around for something he could do but just like the last time there was nothing he could do to help. They were all helpless against this.

In the end he settled for tugging Tony's blanket a little further up his chest and smoothing them at the edges. He almost smiled when he thought what the man's reaction would have been if he'd been awake to witness Steve's mothering.

"My mom used to do this for me." He said suddenly. He looked down at Tony but there was no change, no indication to show that he knew Steve had spoken. He continued regardless, "I was a sickly kid. I know you've seen the files but it was worse than that. Practically every winter I'd be in bed the whole time with something or other."

He glanced back at Tony and paused as though waiting for a response. When none came he carried on, "She was wonderful, my Ma. A nurse." He added with a wistful smile. "Must have had the patience of a saint putting up with me for all that time. After she died I ended up in the same orphanage as Bucky."

The name rolled off his tongue, not causing the pain he was so used to associating with it as he steered his mind towards their lighter memories. He drew himself back into the present and carried on, "You would have liked Bucky. Or hated him. I'm not quite sure which." It occurred to Steve that the last thing Tony probably wanted to hear was his ramblings from the war. He almost considered stopping but decided against it with a smile. If Tony wanted him to stop then he could wake up and tell him himself.

A wicked smile took over his face as a particular memory made itself known, "The Comandos hadn't been together long when we had a bit of a rough mission," he refused to see the dead bodies sprawled in his mind's eye but steadfastly carried on, "and I hadn't had the serum long so I was still trying to adjust to it. It was Falsworth who first suggested the drinks but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, one turned into five pretty quickly and it was after that that Bucky got it into his head that challenging me to a drinking competition would be a good idea. He couldn't remeber much of it come the next day but I ended up carrying him to his room that night."

Steve chuckled, remembering the strange looks he'd got as he walked back to the barracks with an incoherent Bucky slung over his shoulder. Well, it had certainly made a change from the usual. Pre-serum Steve would have had as much luck carrying Bucky as current Steve had trying to figure out the Internet.

"The next day he looked just about fit to murder all of us, had the hangover from hell. So then Howard- I mean your dad, " he looked almost expecting the sour look that always accompanied the subject of Howard Stark, but of course this time there is none, "took the opportunity to test out these new transceivers he'd been making. Needless to say they were obscenely loud and I thought we might lose him to some of Bucky's not so friendly fire."

He hadn't told anyone that before, well for him it had been less than a year ago that it had happened, so when he focused back on Tony he was hoping for just some miniscule reaction to show that in some level he recognised that Steve was still there talking to him.

There was none.

Steve yawned, leaned back in his chair. "Did I ever tell you about the time..."

_Week four _

"I started in those new improvements you wanted for the main reactor core in the tower." Said Bruce suddenly as he remembered. He leant forward as he spoke, glad to finally have something that felt relevant to talk about. "Well," he amended, "myself and two SHEILD technicians. Couldn't really do it without you, seeing as for me; radiation, yes, anything else is a little touch and go."

He looked at Tony on the bed and sighed as though he'd spoken, "I know what you're going to say but I kept an eye on them and they didn't touch anything they shouldn't have." He smiled a little, "Think I might have made them a little nervous."

In truth he'd made himself a little nervous. It galled him to even think it but it turned out that Tony had turned into a stabablising presence in his life. He wasn't used to being stuck in a lab with scientists who flinched every time he moved. It set him in edge more than anything Tony could ever do. One of the particularly green around the gills technicians had actually fled the room when Bruce had swore under his breath as he accidently nicked himself with the soldiering iron. It would have been funny if Tony was in the background snickering, but somehow when it was just him it just made him feel lonelier.

He leaned back in his chair and raised his arms to his head as he tried to think of anything else that Tony would have wanted to know. He walked into the room intent on telling Tony so much but it had all evaporated the moment he set foot over the threshold. "Thor!" He exclaimed suddenly. "That's as what I was going to tell you. We got word from Asgard that Thor's going to be fine. Should be down to see us in a few days."

It would be nice to see the Asgardian, he thought. Though the situation was more desperate than perhaps his team mates knew somehow he was sure that it would seem less so if Thor was present. Maybe it as just the thought of being able to present a united front and battle through together.

The press had started speculating on Tony's condition. At this point he was amazed that it had taken them this long to start guessing; whatever you wanted to say about Pepper she could do a damn fine job of leading the media astray when she wanted to.

"He would have come sooner," Bruce muttered, "but well," he cast a sheepish look at his friend, "I guess you know better than anyone what happened."

They had all been worried when Thor, their resident God, hadn't been able to bounce back from the attack and even more so when it became evident that no one in this realm was going to be able to treat him. It didn't bode well for Tony's chances of a full recovery but when they'd finally reached them after seeing them drop from the sky, like stones from a bridge, it was clear who had taken the worst of the hit. It was common knowledge that Thor was practically immortal and yet Bruce had still felt for a pulse, just to reassure himself.

But there was no point worrying about that now when he would be within the realm again in a few short days. The healing powers of Asgard had set him rights again and soon he would be standing unblemished with the rest of them. It was nothing short of a miracle-

The idea blindsided him so suddenly that had he been standing he would have fallen down. It was so obvious! He needed to get started in this _now_ before time ran out.

"I've got to go!" He blurted, forgetting that his comment would go unheard.

He threw himself down the hallways and ran, shoes squeaking on the tiled floor as his mind already started to work through all that he would need.

_Week four and a half _

Jody slammed her locker shut aggressively and set to tying her hair back with short, sharp movements. "What's wrong with you?" Came a tentative voice from behind her.

She whirled around with lips pursed, fully ready to complain until she was blue in the face. She relaxed marginally when it was only Lucy, another nurse on her shift, standing there but she still launched into a tirade, "I've just had to try and come in through the front entrance!" She fumed, her motions becoming jerky as she tried to check her hands and tie her shoe laces at the same time.

Lucy winced in sympathy, already able to tell what was the problem.

"Only I spent a whole ten minutes being _accosted_ before I could into _my_ place of work." Jody continued still shaking with anger, "There's fucking _hundreds_ of reporters out there. Someone let slip that I was one of Tony Stark's nurse and they wouldn't let me in the building! Don't they have better things to do? It's not like he's going anywhere and why do they even want to know? It's just morbid..."

Her voice tailed off as some of the anger drained out of her. She still thought she might throttle another one of them if they so much pushed a microphone towards her but she no longer felt like charging all of them at once armed only with a scalpel.

Lucy tentatively placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. It was hard having patients of such a public calibre under your care, she knew that well, but the hospital was one of the best providers of health care money could. It wasn't unheard of and certainly not unexpected under the circumstances. But Lucy had heard the rumours going through the corridors and her Jody's only slightly misplaced anger had just confirmed it.

People were saying that Tony Stark wasn't going to wake up. The look on Jody's face said that he was slipping away.

Lucy shook herself. It was hard watching a patient die, but even harder when you knew that a public shiptstorm would ensue and people would throw around accusations like confetti without caring who they landed on.

"Come on." She said, grabbing the other nurse's arm and beginning to steer her, "The hospital said they're releasing a statement on Stark today, just to try and get rid of some of the press."

Jody opened her mouth to protest but Lucy just waved down her protests. They made their way to the entrance of the hospital where the hoard of reporters were waiting. They only had to what a few minutes before the noticbly uncomfortable hospital representative walked past them.

After an initial burst of noise and camera flashing a strained silence fell as by mutual agreement they quieted to listen to what he had to say.

The man, greying around the edges and with a sheen of sweat on his face, shuffled the papers in his hands before he addressed the crowd before him, "Ladies and gentlemen of the press-"

"Are the rumours true that Tony Stark died in his sleep sometime last week?"

"Are the rest of the Avengers with him?"

"What are his actual injuries at this point?"

The man raised his voice and spoke over them, ignoring any questions they threw at him, "Mr Tony Stark remains in a stable condition-"

_Bullshit_, thought Jody, _that man's deteriorating. He isn't going to live to see next month let alone the outside of this hospital._

The man continued regardless of Jody's bitter inner monologue,"-both he, his team and Mrs Stark would like to thank you for your well wishes and understanding at this difficult time."

He moved as if to turn his back on the journalists but instead of the usual quick fire volley of questions that would normally be hurled forward there was only an eerie silence. It actually made the rep stop and look back over his shoulder.

It was all quiet until a small incredulous voice from the back piped up, "Mrs Stark?"

Jody, personally, was a little scared of Pepper Stark. She hadn't been the one to show her to her husband when he first got out of surgery but she'd seen her plenty since. Tony Stark may have been made of iron but his wife was made of steel. She was there for every new doctor they brought in, listening and making notes as though with enough information she could solve this problem like any other. She questioned them competently and cut them down when a few of the braver ends tried to blind her with science.

Personally, Jody hadn't been surprised at all to hear they'd been married on the down low. It was the sort of thing celebrities did, wasn't it? And she could perfectly understand why they'd choose that over a proper wedding when she looked at the madhouse that was the rowdy press trying to squeeze a new story out of anyone they met.

Talking of...it was the same group of people who'd now been completely silent for over half a minute. Then they exploded. They talked over each other and all at once, pressing forward until both nurses and the man who'd given the statement were forced back into the hospital.

She couldn't be sure but in all of the chaos of shouted names it sounded like Pepper had been mentioned an awful lot more than Tony. Well, she didn't have time to think about it now. There was more work to be done than sit gawking at people who had nothing better to do than try and invade a hospital.

With a last squeeze on the shoulder to Lucy she left to make her rounds and begin her day.

_Week five _

"Mrs Stark?"

Pepper still had no idea how that lie was still standing. The littlest investigation and it would crumble and fall. She guessed no one had seen reason to check. The bigger the lie the harder it is to believe someone made it up.

"Mrs Stark?" Her head snapped to attention. She hadn't slept in what felt like weeks and crappy hospital food seemed universal no matter how much you paid for the health care. "We called you in here to discuss a serious matter."

She looked at the consultant who sat across from her behind a polished dark wood desk. The room gave an air off wealth as much as the man in it did. He was immaculately groomed; balding hair brushed neatly, suit neatly pressed and shoes that she could have used as a mirror. Normally it would have made her feel self conscious as she sat there in yesterday's clothes, hair scraped back and skin nearing the deathly pallor which Tony still sported, but she didn't feel anything as she sat there. She wished she could but it felt like she'd been drained to the point where there was nothing left inside of her anymore.

"Your husband stipulated in his will that he did not want to be kept alive by unnatural means if there was no chance for a recovery or even a return to consciousness past a month. As per his wishes we have kept him in a vegetative state for the past five weeks but he shows no signs of improving. He has deteriorated past the point where he could ever make a full recovery. At this point it is extremely unlikely he will ever wake again."

The consultant stopped. Sighed. Continued.

"We need to know what your course of action is going to be. Do you wish to end or continue his life support at this time?"

She was wrong. She could still feel, and it was so much worse.

[2/3]


End file.
